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BEF photo with location & date.

Could be a Military Police man?,November 1939?,but uniform looks like you would use in summer?


Re: BEF photo with location & date.

It looks like a Military Police cap badge and perhaps that's the white spear head of 1st Corps on the front mudguard.

Rob

email (option): robmiller11(a)yahoo.co.uk

Re: BEF photo with location & date.

The BEF appear to have gone a lot further south than I thought they did...Ian

email (option): ian@wright52.plus.com

Re: BEF photo with location & date.

Cap badge is CMP indeed.
Uniform he is wearing is the interwar wool other ranks service dress. Also known as the Pattern 1922SD. Witch was replaced by the “battle dress serge” also known as Battledress P37. The most of the BEF troops went to France in P22. And 2/3 of them had issued their battledress in France.

The replacing from the 1908pattern webbing to the 1937pattern webbing took place in the same time. For a lot of the men it ended up in one big mix of new and old uniforms.

email (option): bsawm20@hotmail.com

Re: BEF photo with location & date.

Gents

Looking at the building it does not appear to be the sort you will find in Lisle sur Tarn. Brick work and general appearance is more Northern European like Northern France, Belgium and Holland.

Trawling through Lisle sur Tarn on streetview there is no building like it. That town also looks much as it will have been for past centuries.


Its my thinking that the French soldier standing behind the MC is actually Maurice and this was likely a reference to his home town.

Cheers,

Rob



email (option): wd16h@telfort.nl

Re: BEF photo with location & date.

That sounds plausible...I looked immediately for the town on Google and drew a similar conclusion, at least about the buildings...Also, isn't it further South than the BEF got?.....

The old town certainly looks like a nice place to visit though!....Ian

email (option): ian@wright52.plus.com

Re: BEF photo with location & date.

Looking at wikipedia, I doubt BEF ever came that far South.
They were basically the left flank of the French army and as such at the Northern borders.
Maybe Rik can gie a more definite answer.

Also remarkable is the exact number of 20.548 BEF motorcycles that were left behind according to that wiki.

It certainly looks like a nice old place to visit. The Gorges du Tarn are very nice.

cheers,

Rob

email (option): wd16h@telfort.nl

Re: BEF photo with location & date.

A little off topic, but I do wonder with peoples collections of WW2 pictures, especially those that would have been censored.
All of my families pictures are generally poses as if on some jolly military themed holiday. If yours are the same, do you think this was not to worry those at home?

email (option): pes.sales@btconnect.com

Re: BEF photo with location & date.

Hello Mark,

To start with, most soldiers did not have a camera at all in those days, and if they did, they would be fairly dedicated when making a picture. They did not have more than 12 or 24? options on one roll of film and getting them developed will have been quite difficult in any area under contest.
Under operational circumstances they would have had other things to worry about unless it was their job.

I think it is therefore very plausible that they made pictures while on R&R or during a period of rest.
If and when they were able to have film developed and printed, I don't know.
Not wanting to have their next of kin worried will also have been an issue.

Would be interesting how it was all done then.

Cheers,

Rob

email (option): wd16h@telfort.nl

Re: BEF photo with location & date.

I can add a little background to this image. I was in touch with a family member of the CMP corporal. The Frenchman is also a provost...a 'chef de section' apparently.

There is a second photograph of the same French liason alongside a Morris-Commercial 15cwt which also shows the 1 Corps sign and a '68' Arm of Service serial indicating No. 102 Provost Company who were Corps Provost.

The 1 Corps diaries indicate that their phoney war HQ was at Cuincy, close to Douai and that the APM was also based there. The location is probably somewhere in the centre of the village.

102-Provost-1-Corps-Ao-S-68

Re: BEF photo with location & date.

It's surprising there are as many photos as there are...The availability of film (in the UK) was, theoretically at least, pretty strictly controlled for obvious security reasons...There was plenty of official paranoia about 'fifth columnists' and actual German spies...My village historical society has a distinct lack of wartime photos and that was reason they gave me for it...
I guess human nature tries to find a way though or maybe those controls came in later...
Regarding the sending of photos to families I wouldn't have thought the average soldier would be likely to send a snap that indicated he was in fear of his life to a worried family member and the official censor was also in the background, so 'smiles all round' was probably the order of the day...
Anyway, at that stage there hadn't been any shooting and we still imagined we were going to give the Germans a damn good thrashing, not that it would be the other way round....Ian

email (option): ian@wright52.plus.com

Re: BEF photo with location & date.

Is the chimney in the last photo, possibly the one here at the Paul Paix Raffinerie, Douai, which was I presume on the out skirts of Douai ? I guess if you are going to guard something from the enemy, it would be this ?

Douai-Reffinerie


Also the architecture of Cuincy certainly matches the first photo, this is close and although now with a rendered finish, this building is almost a match but not quite..


Cuincy

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